Czechoslovak Folk Music and Dance Ensembles and the World Youth Festival in the 1950s: An Ethnomusicology and Oral History Perspective

Abstract

One of the most significant mass manifestations of the state-subsidised cultural expres- sions of the Socialist Bloc in the second half of the 20th century was “Red Woodstock”, the World Festival of Youth and Students. The first edition took place in the summer of 1947 in Prague. Incidentally, this festival featured Czechoslovak amateur and professional folk music and dance en- sembles in a preliminary line-up, which later became the most important established ensembles in the country. Some of these ensembles then appeared regularly at Youth Festivals. Such festival performances were considered very influential performance opportunity for ensembles of folk music and dance in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. The present article, based on data gathered through interviews grounded in oral history and archival research, explores the role of the World Youth Festivals in the process of foundation of Czechoslovak ensembles of folk music and dance and their repertoire negotiation of the traditional music and dance within the vague framework of socialist realism on the one hand, and an everyday-life perspective and ordinary desire to perform pronounced by the ensembles’ members on the other.